JVC reps dropped by work and showed us their new oh-so-spiffy PJ today.
PJ is a full hidef (1920x1080) DILA with 500 lumens and 2000:1 CR. Projector "head" has only a DVI input which accepts only 1080p @ 50 or 60Hz. Is intended to be packaged with an offboard faroudjia scaler/input box with the usual suspect connnectors.
They brought just the projector, no scaler/outboard box.
Mini ATX (Shuttle?) PC with a Radeon 9600SE, 2.2-2.4 P4, outputting 1920x1080 60Hz, 10 meter Extron DVI cable to the PJ.
Screen is a 1 gain beaded (not sure of the mfr/model, can maybe find out tomorrow), room is our 3d projection test room, very good light control and treatment for ambient absorption. Also tried our higher gain 3d screen briefly, but the not-so-micro perf made me go "ugh, retract it NOW!". Image was about 10' wide (screen is MUCH larger).
Media: Series of 1920x1080 jpegs from an Extron shootout demo file off the hard drive, WM9 HD off hard drive of a John Woo directed BMW spot from the WM9 microsoft HD site, first 5 minutes of Matrix Revolutions (I had picked it up at lunch) and first 15 minutes of Finding Nemo. DVD playback was through PowerDVD which ATI bundles with the card drivers.
Color - yellows/oranges on this unit are really nice, a lot better than my 20 HD (which is fairly good on color IMO). THere was one of the slides with a gold chromed exhaust system that looked really good, better than I've seen before. And color overall on the unit was really really nice. Although this iss the same lamp as the SX21, they say the color has been worked on and immproved. I have not seen an SX21, but I have seen a 150CLU, and I was impressed very much by this new unit. Nemo looks pretty nice on my setup, but this was severely better, a fair bit more vivid, but the, I don't know, purity(?) of the colors was better. Just MORE colors I guess. More real.
Screen door - none. When pressed, the reps admitted they had forgotten to put pixels in this unit and it was just one continuous image. OK seriously, with a 10' wide (not diagonal) immage, pixels were invisible on many colors/parts of the image beyond about 1', and on any portion over 3'. And at 1', you could pretty much only make out the pixels as they were rectangles of different color, NOT because there were visible lines between them. Tile with no grout. For comparison, the panasonic 7600 at 30-40% smaller image size had far more noticeable SD at greater distances (2-3X).
Brightness - Remembering I have a 20HD/Highpower setup, clockinng ina t somewhere around 800-90 ftL after calibration, yet I have to say I would be fine with the brightness of this image at this size (but I would be very nostalgic for my eye-searing lumen level and would certainly pay more for the same unit at double or triple the output). It was missing the punch I am used to, but under the light control we had, it had easily the same impact as my friend's new HS20 on his 109" diagonal highpower. I think anyone who isn't addicted to high light levels would certainly be happy with this unit on a unity gain screen. And with a high gain screen, I think nearly everyone here would be happy with it. No question in my mind they are getting the full 500 quoted lumens out of it if not a bit more. For the minute we had the high gain 3D screen down, it showed it would pair really nicely with a highpower or silverstar.
Black level - pretty darn good. But then I have a "low" contrast light cannon with a high gain screen, so I am neither experienced nor demanding in this area. Seriously, though, black level is an issue for us as we use PJs not just for theater type applications, but in our special effects where we often don't want the park guest to even consider they are looking at a projection, so low black levels are important to us. The level on the HD2K is very good. Certainly out of LCD and older DILA territory and into good DLP class.
Shadow detail - only really have the short matrix segment for evaluating that, but looked very, very nice to me. Actually, strike that. 1-2 of the extron slides were test patterns, one of greyscale. It does this beautifully. Really really beautifully.
Sharpness - there was also a slide of test at various resolutions. I have not ever seen projected text look this good at simultaneous multiple font sizes. Completely readable and looking like a nice printed page at all sizes. Those of you familiar with this series of JPEGs maybe know if they can be posted for reference. On the WM9 segment, detail was beautiful.
Panning/artifact stuff - since they were using just the 9600SE to do all the scaling with no third party stuff, gotta think the only bad thing I was was due to that. On the slow pans at the beginning of Nemo, there were some pretty minor stutters. Did NOT see evidence of it on the WM9 material streamed from disk which had a lot more demanding pans and detail level, so I am thinking this is powerDVD's fault. On the WM9, I did not notice artifacts of any kind at any point. I was generally standing between 8 and 12 feet away. Or sitting 5 feet from the screen.
Anyway, I'm skipping lunch from now until I have saved enough for one of these.
Also saw a demo of a pretty nifty no-glasses 3D technology today. Will post a separate thread on that later. All in all, a GOOD day to go to work.
BB
PJ is a full hidef (1920x1080) DILA with 500 lumens and 2000:1 CR. Projector "head" has only a DVI input which accepts only 1080p @ 50 or 60Hz. Is intended to be packaged with an offboard faroudjia scaler/input box with the usual suspect connnectors.
They brought just the projector, no scaler/outboard box.
Mini ATX (Shuttle?) PC with a Radeon 9600SE, 2.2-2.4 P4, outputting 1920x1080 60Hz, 10 meter Extron DVI cable to the PJ.
Screen is a 1 gain beaded (not sure of the mfr/model, can maybe find out tomorrow), room is our 3d projection test room, very good light control and treatment for ambient absorption. Also tried our higher gain 3d screen briefly, but the not-so-micro perf made me go "ugh, retract it NOW!". Image was about 10' wide (screen is MUCH larger).
Media: Series of 1920x1080 jpegs from an Extron shootout demo file off the hard drive, WM9 HD off hard drive of a John Woo directed BMW spot from the WM9 microsoft HD site, first 5 minutes of Matrix Revolutions (I had picked it up at lunch) and first 15 minutes of Finding Nemo. DVD playback was through PowerDVD which ATI bundles with the card drivers.
Color - yellows/oranges on this unit are really nice, a lot better than my 20 HD (which is fairly good on color IMO). THere was one of the slides with a gold chromed exhaust system that looked really good, better than I've seen before. And color overall on the unit was really really nice. Although this iss the same lamp as the SX21, they say the color has been worked on and immproved. I have not seen an SX21, but I have seen a 150CLU, and I was impressed very much by this new unit. Nemo looks pretty nice on my setup, but this was severely better, a fair bit more vivid, but the, I don't know, purity(?) of the colors was better. Just MORE colors I guess. More real.
Screen door - none. When pressed, the reps admitted they had forgotten to put pixels in this unit and it was just one continuous image. OK seriously, with a 10' wide (not diagonal) immage, pixels were invisible on many colors/parts of the image beyond about 1', and on any portion over 3'. And at 1', you could pretty much only make out the pixels as they were rectangles of different color, NOT because there were visible lines between them. Tile with no grout. For comparison, the panasonic 7600 at 30-40% smaller image size had far more noticeable SD at greater distances (2-3X).
Brightness - Remembering I have a 20HD/Highpower setup, clockinng ina t somewhere around 800-90 ftL after calibration, yet I have to say I would be fine with the brightness of this image at this size (but I would be very nostalgic for my eye-searing lumen level and would certainly pay more for the same unit at double or triple the output). It was missing the punch I am used to, but under the light control we had, it had easily the same impact as my friend's new HS20 on his 109" diagonal highpower. I think anyone who isn't addicted to high light levels would certainly be happy with this unit on a unity gain screen. And with a high gain screen, I think nearly everyone here would be happy with it. No question in my mind they are getting the full 500 quoted lumens out of it if not a bit more. For the minute we had the high gain 3D screen down, it showed it would pair really nicely with a highpower or silverstar.
Black level - pretty darn good. But then I have a "low" contrast light cannon with a high gain screen, so I am neither experienced nor demanding in this area. Seriously, though, black level is an issue for us as we use PJs not just for theater type applications, but in our special effects where we often don't want the park guest to even consider they are looking at a projection, so low black levels are important to us. The level on the HD2K is very good. Certainly out of LCD and older DILA territory and into good DLP class.
Shadow detail - only really have the short matrix segment for evaluating that, but looked very, very nice to me. Actually, strike that. 1-2 of the extron slides were test patterns, one of greyscale. It does this beautifully. Really really beautifully.
Sharpness - there was also a slide of test at various resolutions. I have not ever seen projected text look this good at simultaneous multiple font sizes. Completely readable and looking like a nice printed page at all sizes. Those of you familiar with this series of JPEGs maybe know if they can be posted for reference. On the WM9 segment, detail was beautiful.
Panning/artifact stuff - since they were using just the 9600SE to do all the scaling with no third party stuff, gotta think the only bad thing I was was due to that. On the slow pans at the beginning of Nemo, there were some pretty minor stutters. Did NOT see evidence of it on the WM9 material streamed from disk which had a lot more demanding pans and detail level, so I am thinking this is powerDVD's fault. On the WM9, I did not notice artifacts of any kind at any point. I was generally standing between 8 and 12 feet away. Or sitting 5 feet from the screen.
Anyway, I'm skipping lunch from now until I have saved enough for one of these.
Also saw a demo of a pretty nifty no-glasses 3D technology today. Will post a separate thread on that later. All in all, a GOOD day to go to work.
BB
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